Magnox Berkeley NPP, UK
Cyclife Aquila Nuclear & Magnox teams at successful site commissioning
Background
The Chute Silo intermediate-level waste project was set up by Magnox to retrieve waste in the form of irradiated control rods and charge chutes, from a storage silo on the Berkeley nuclear site in UK.
Challenge
35 waste baskets had to be removed from the silo building and transferred to a Ductile Cast Iron Container (DCIC) for further export to an on-site storage facility.
Magnox had a scheme design from a third party for a solution, but Cyclife Aquila Nuclear was not convinced this was the right solution because it was complex and expensive.
Our proposal
Cyclife Aquila Nuclear designed a new solution using « commercial-off-the-shelf » items to reduce cost in manufacturing and cost of actual operation by Magnox.
The solution included a custom-made pintle grab for lifting waste baskets, a shielded cell for de-lidding and loading waste baskets into DCIC, and overhead hoist for loading DCIC on to cross-site transporters.
Customer benefits
- Pragmatic design for manual operation substantially reduced cost of the project.
- Robust project management helped beat original programme even with additional scope, enabling Magnox to use the solution ahead of their planned schedule.
Results
- Cyclife Aquila Nuclear won the NDA Award for « going the extra mile »
- > GBP 1M cost saving to Magnox’s original budget
- Three-month programme reduction